When the cover was lifted, she smiled faintly in the anxious face of her lover. "O God, she is alive!" he exclaimed, and broke down in a paroxysm of sobs. She had a terrible brain fever, and when she recovered from it, her glossy hair was sprinkled with gray, and the weight of ten years was added to her youthful face. Thanks to the vigilance and secrecy of friends, the hounds of the United States, who use the Constitution for their kennel, did not get a chance to lap the blood of this poor trembling hare. Legislators of Massachusetts! suppose this innocent girl had been your own Mary or Emma, would you not straightway demand amendment of the Constitution, in no very measured terms? And if it could not be obtained right speedily, would you not ride over the Constitution roughshod? If you would not, you do not deserve to have such blessings as lovely and innocent daughters. You have all heard of Margaret Garner, who escaped from Kentucky to Ohio, with her father and mother, her husband and four children. The Cincinnati papers described her as "a dark mulatto, twenty-three years of age, of an interesting appearance, considerable intelligence, and a good address." Her husband was described as "about twenty-two years old, of a very lithe, active form, and rather a mild, pleasant countenance." These fugitives were sheltered by a colored friend in Ohio. There the hounds in pay of the United States, to which "price of blood" you and I and all of us contribute, ferreted them out, and commanded them to surrender. When they refused to do so, they burst open the door, and assailed the inmates of the house with cudgels and pistols. They defended themselves bravely, but were overpowered by numbers and disarmed. When Margaret perceived that there was no help for her and her little ones, she seized a knife and cut the throat of her most beautiful child. She was about to do the same by the others, when her arm was arrested. The child killed was nearly white, and exceedingly pretty. The others were mulattoes, and pretty also. What history lay behind this difference of complexion, the world will probably never know. But I have talked confidentially with too many fugitive women not to know that very sad histories do lie behind such facts. Margaret Garner knew very well what fate awaited her handsome little daughter, and that nerved her arm to strike the death-blow. It was an act that deserves to take its place in history by the side of the Roman Virginius.